Iridescent
by aradescent
Summary: Iridescent; that's what she is. A mirror of sorts. Perhaps they are under the illusion that they know her, but she'll keep them questioning that thought. Even though she never tells a lie, they'll never know the truth. But that's life, right?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everyone! I am a new writer here! You can call me rin if you'd like~ Anyway, this is kind of like a preview to a story I started writing. If it gets good feedback, then I will update it, so be sure to like/favourite/review! Thank you for your time~!**

 **Classes: (now subject to change)**

 **right now, they are all base classes (including my OC), but they will eventually become these classes.**

 **Elsword: Infinity Sword**

 **Aisha: Void Princess**

 **Rena: Night Watcher**

 **Raven: Reckless Fist**

 **Eve: Code Nemesis**

 **Chung: Deadly Chaser**

 **Ara: Asura**

 **Elesis: Crimson Avenger**

 **Add: Diabolic Esper**

 **Lu &Ciel: Noblesse&Royal Guard**

 **Well, please enjoy this preview!**

* * *

Once again, Claire found herself being pursued. Last time it was only two men, but now it was six. She wondered why there had been such a drastic increase in effort to capture her. But, of course, that didn't matter at the moment. She had to escape. Quickly, she left the restaurant she was in and made her way through the thick forest, hoping to lose them. Unfortunately, luck was not on her side today.

Deciding it was probably better to fight, Claire stopped and got into ready position, not even using her scythe. Those were her first mistakes. The men were all armed and apparently skilled fighters as she barely managed to dodge several attacks. She was shocked by their eagerness to hurt her and she let her defense down for just a second. However, in that second, they managed to hurt her fairly badly. It was six to one after all. Bleeding from many deep cut wounds, Claire used a smoke screen in desperation. Quickly, she changed to her cat form and ran as far away from the men she could get, collapsing on the ground after a while.

Finally, when she was sure that no one had followed her, she was able to relax a bit. The pain from her wounds was great and she had lost lots of blood. This made it impossible to travel any further. With that knowledge, Claire let herself drift into darkness.

* * *

"Dinner is ready!" Rena called up the stairs to the rest of the El Search Party. Currently, they were staying in the outskirts of Elder as they helped take care of the thieves and Banthus. Quickly all the members rushed downstairs in anticipation of Rena and Ciel's fantastic cooking.

"I'm so glad Rena and Ciel are cooking,"Aisha said sliding into her seat at the table.

"Ciel's cooking is really delicious!" Lu exclaimed bouncing slightly in her chair.

Rena and Ciel carried many plates of various foods from the kitchen and placed them in the centre of the table. There was definitely not a shortage of food, even though the team was so large. Finally taking their seats, Rena and Ciel and the others ate the food that they had prepared. At that time, trouble was forgotten with laughter and talk. Once the meal was finished, the boys scurried off, leaving the girls with cleanup.

Elesis rolled her eyes. "What a surprise."

Ara laughed and began taking the plates to the sink. The other four girls followed suit. The job of cleaning got done quickly with the six of them all working together.

"I think I'll go outside to practice for a bit!" Ara called, heading out with her spear in hand.

Ara walked into the forest that surrounded the large house and found a nice spot to practice. She was about to start when a pale green glow caught her eye. Walking over to the light, she bent down to find a small black cat with a big pale green ribbon around it's neck that seemed to be giving off the light. It was badly wounded. _Oh no!_ Ara thought. _Maybe one of the members can help . . ._ with that, Ara picked up the cat gently and rushed back to the house.

"Rena!" Ara called through the doorway. "I found a wounded cat, do you think you could help it? I don't know how to treat its wounds."

Hearing all the ruckus, the rest of the members gathered in the common room.

"Does anyone know how to treat this cat's wounds?" She asked everyone.

"I could probably help it," Add looked at the cat in a bit of disgust.

"Don't do anything weird!" Aisha said in a joking tone as he took the cat back to his room. To Aisha, something seemed familiar about this cat, but she couldn't quite remember . . .

Laying the cat down on his bed, Add got various bandages and ointments and treated the cat's wounds. After finishing, he went to his desk to work on an upgrade for his dynamos.

* * *

Opening her eyes, a wave of confusion crashed over Claire. Where was she? Why was she there? How did she get there? And then it all came back to her. Realizing she was in her cat form, she put her guard up. Currently she was on a bed, and someone had treated her wounds. A white haired boy was sitting with his back to her at a desk. Hopping off the bed in curiosity, she went to the desk and jumped up, earning her an irritated look from the boy. He appeared to be playing around with a piece of nasod technology.

Circling the device, she quickly analyzed it. Apparently he was trying to upgrade it. Claire guessed that he didn't know what he was supposed to use for he had a bunch of different materials scattered on the table and an array of torn up nasods on the floor. The boy watched her as she jumped to the floor and pulled a small piece off one of the nasod on the floor and brought it to him. He just looked confused so she pushed the piece with her paw towards the device. Slowly, the boy put the piece into place. The device gave a soft whir and lit up with purple electricity.

Claire jumped down and went on to the bed. Suddenly she was really tired, and the bed was really comfortable. Relaxing a bit, she let her guard down and then regretted it immediately, as she turned back to her human form. The bed creaked under the sudden change of weight which caught the boy's attention. Claire cursed under her breath.

* * *

A cat just gave him the piece he needed to complete the upgrade to his dynamos. Add sat there in confusion for several minutes until he heard a creak from behind him. He almost regretted turning around. Sitting on his bed was a girl probably around his age. She had black hair tied in a bun and piercing pale green eyes. She wore a simple pale green dress. They stared at each other for a few seconds before the door suddenly opened.

"Add! By the way please be careful, that cat is actually━" Aisha paused when she saw the two looking at each other and both turned to her. "a human . . ." she trailed off.

"Yes, you came to tell me this at a very helpful time, Aisha." Add said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Claire stood up hurriedly. "I'm sorry . . . for causing a lot of trouble to you." she said quietly.

Aisha walked right up to her and slapped her across the face, _hard_. Claire looked shocked and Add was wearing an amused face.

"Where the hell have you been, Claire?!" Aisha looked like she was about to cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello everyone! I'm back~ I haven't had as much to do lately as I expected, so I decided that I'll continue to update this story as much as possible. Special thanks to Shirou-kun for favouriting and following, as well as for posting a review! From now onward, reviews will be posted at the end for courtesy to anyone that does not wish to read them. Now, as I left everyone in the dark with the preview, I suppose it would be polite of me to at least introduce my OC.**

 **Name:** ** _Claire_**

 **Hair:** ** _black, down to her shoulders_**

 **Eyes:** ** _pale green_**

 **Class: S** ** _orceress_**

 **Weapon:** ** _scythe; dark magic_**

 **Age:** ** _13_**

 **Date of Birth:** ** _December 30th_**

 **Height:** ** _150 cm_**

 **Blood Type:** ** _O_**

 **Class Tree:** ** _Sorcer_** _ **ess → Silver Sorceress**_ ** _→ Diamond Enchantress_**

 **well, i think that should be sufficient for now, enjoy this new chapter, and please review!**

* * *

"Where the hell have you been, Claire?!" Aisha looked like she was about to cry.

"This is great and all," Add said with a twinge of irritation. "But can we take this out of my room?"

Aisha gave him a look then grabbed Claire by the wrist and dragged her to the living room where Rena, Ara and Lu were already relaxing. Suddenly jumping up Lu looked around.

"I sense a strong demonic aura!" she exclaimed.

"I sense it as well," Ara agreed.

"Yes, well, that would be her." Aisha said pointing to Claire who looked at the ground.

The three girls looked at Claire in confusion.

"Who's that? How'd she even get in here?" Lu asked giving her a strange look.

"I will explain while the rest of the group may hear." Aisha said calmly.

Rena called everyone to the common room and once, with a few struggles, everyone had assembled, she gestured to Aisha. Everyone just look around in confusion.

"Right," Aisha cleared her throat and everyone turned their attention to her. "This is Claire. Yes, she is in fact a demon. A demon cat to be exact. She can only change to a human thanks to me. You see, back when I was younger, there were mass attacks on the citizens of Velder. Night after night, many citizens were found dead, ripped to shreds, and their souls were taken. I began to investigate because it was an unsettling event. One evening, I walking in on an attack taking place. The person was severely hurt, practically dismembered. The culprit was none other than a black cat with a pale green bow around it's neck. I found this strange, but then it started talking. This lead me to guess that it was a demon. I asked why it was stealing souls. It just wanted to become human, so I granted it it's wish, as long as it promised to stay out of trouble. We became friends not long after and Claire here helped me out in a lot of different things, like studying my magic." she explained.

"Wait wait so let me get this straight," Elsword shook his head. "This tiny kid is a murderer and you _helped_ her?" Claire's face darkened.

Aisha gulped and looked at Elsword. "I don't think it's a very good idea to insult her. She may be small, but she has the most fighting experience among us. She could probably easily kill you." Elsword just rolled his eyes.

"If she is a skilled fighter then we can probably utilize her in our team, right?" Eve spoke up.

"Eun said she doesn't seem to have any harmful intentions, so I don't see why not." Ara said.

"She did fix my dynamos . . ." Add mumbled.

Elesis, who was sitting beside Claire, slung her arm around Claire's shoulder. "I suppose that decides it! Welcome to the team!" Claire nodded.

"Well, it's a bit late," Chung said looking at the clock.

"There's a spare bedroom on the top floor." Raven told Claire. With that, everyone went off to bed.

That night everyone slept soundly, even Claire. The next morning, Claire woke up early as usual to train. Snapping her fingers, she changed into her training clothes, a black sleeveless dress that went halfway down her thighs and silver coloured slip on's. Quietly, she made her way downstairs and outside, summoning her scythe.

Aisha woke to the sunshine casting it's rays across her room. Getting up, she pulled open the curtains and stared in surprise as she saw Claire training. The girl was floating almost a meter off the ground, twirling her scythe around with graceful movements and as magic poured from the scythe. Her fighting style was unique and had surprised Aisha when she first saw it years ago. Thinking about that certainty brought back memories, but a memory she wished to forget replayed itself in her head.

 _"There's something I want you to see!" a man said with a hint of excitement in his voice. A young girl nodded and skipped along behind him. They made their way down a staircase and walked into a long hallway lined on both sides with many large windows. Each window show the inside of a white room with some grotesque but somehow beautiful scenes. The man led the girl down the hallway, stopping at a window on the left._

 _"Isn't it beautiful?" he asked the girl. Inside was a human looking creature with large feathered wings that were spread out behind her, her long hair frozen behind her as if the wind was constantly blowing. everything, even the creature was as white as snow, with the exception of all of the splotches of red liquid, and if you looked close enough, you would see the liquid dripping, slowly, painfully._

 _the girl gasped. "It's so pretty!"_

* * *

 **Well, I hope that wasn't too short . . .**

 **Reviews:**

 **Shirou-kun:**

 ** _Yes, haha. I suppose I was going for that though. I'm not sure it was going to be a surprise, but I wanted people to know that it was her. As for pairings, oh wow, I haven't even thought of anything like that! If you have suggestions, I'd definitely be willing to take them into consideration! Possibly It'll go with the flow of things, but still I don't know_** **(ㆁ** **ᴗㆁ✿** **)** ** _Anyway, I hope at least some of your questions will be answered soon! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well~_**

 **~Rin**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, by some miracle, Rin has returned! Actually it's because I'm having server connection problems so I can't play right now, and I'm heavily procrastinating on the health course that's due tomorrow . . . so here is the next chapter! It has come to my attention that I made some mistakes in the earlier chapters, so I have taken the liberty to fix them as much to my ability.**

 **Also, I'd like to bring up the topic on pairings! Since I'm relatively (not really haha) new to Elsword, I'm not 100% in touch with all the pairings there are. I can write almost anything, so if there's a specific pairing you'd like to see, please leave in reviews! This brings up classes as well, so please be specific with classes in the suggestion since it seems there are certain classes that make better pairings (?) and this also means that the classes I originally listed in the beginning of the first chapter are subject to change.**

 **A special thank you goes to KeitaroHigurashi for following and favouriting and both KeitaroHigurashi and Shirou-kun for reviewing! I am grateful for you to take your time to give me advice!**

 **Lastly, I wanted to address Claire's powers. I was debating whether to say this last chapter but I didn't, and now I think I should. Perhaps right now, it seems that she is overly powerful, but I want to clarify that while the others have been fighting for (an assumably) long time, Claire was brought up to fight. I can't tell exact reason yet because that would spoil it, but for now, just know that while she may be more powerful, she has more experience, and a larger tolerance zone for both physical and magical fighting.**

 **Anyways, I think I should just get to the story now (** **ㅇㅅㅇ** **)**

 **Please enjoy~**

 **P.S. since my writing earlier is maybe a bit confusing, I'll separate by point of view from now on.**

* * *

 _ **Aisha**_

That was one of the flashbacks that I hated the most. I can't remember anything even remotely before or after that. It gives me so many questions. What was that . . . _thing_? Who was that man? Why did he show me that hallway? There are so many unanswered questions. Pushing these thoughts from my mind, I dressed and went downstairs to eat breakfast with the rest of the group. Just in that time that I had been fantasizing about the past, Claire had managed to come inside and change, even though she can use magic, that was still very quick.

She was talking to Ara about something, and by the extravagant movements said people made, I guessed it had something to do with their weapons. They are similar right? The scythe and spear? No? I don't really know, they seem similar, with long shafts and something sharp at one end, but then again, I have no expertise on weapons. For a long time, I had never even seen someone fight with anything other than magic.

Since Rena was nowhere to be found, Ciel was in charge of cooking. Due to Lu's preferences, it was mostly sweet things, waffles, pancakes, crepes, stuff like this. Not that I minded, I love sweet things as well. On my right, Claire was giving a doubtful look towards the foods on the table. I suppose demons probably would not have had things like this to eat, and who knows where Claire's been these past 10 years? Ara giggled and reassured her that everything tasted fine, so Claire hesitantly took a waffle onto her plate. As I chose a pancake, I wondered where Rena could be. Elsword was also missing, and this is quite a shocker. I've never seen him absent from a meal, like _ever_. It was probably something important then.

Breakfast was just a bunch of small talk but I could tell everyone had these same questions as me. Sometime around an hour after our meal had finished, Rena and Elsword returned. They quickly gathered everyone into the common room.

 _ **Rena**_

As soon as we returned home, I told Elsword to gather the rest of the members. We had just came back from a meeting with Lowe. He took us to meet Hoffman to get some more information on Banthus. Since we previously didn't know much about the Captain Bandit, it would have been hard for us to capture him.

Understandably, we had to earn his trust first. I think it was an important step, but Elsword didn't like it much. I'm sure he wishes that we could just go and capture Banthus. After we retrieved some of the things that Banthus' bandits had stolen, he gave us some information. Apparently, strange things have been happening in a forest near here. The things in the forest have been tainted somehow, turning it into a dark forest. Hoffman wants our team to investigate the cause of this corruption.

All the members are now assemb;ed in the common room, so I will relay the information to them. Best to not let Elsword or he might mess up the information or just say something stupid . . .

"Listen up everyone." I said looking around the room. "The inhabitants of a nearby part of the forest have been corrupted somehow, and Lowe has asked us to find out why and what's causing it. Maybe this will give us a clue toward Banthus' wearabouts."

"Wait so, we're not talking about . . . ghosts, right?" Add asks me.

"Well, I suppose there could be that possibility." I answer, and he visibly shivers. Interesting.

"Moving on," Elsword rolls his eyes, getting a glare from Add. "We should get going!"

With the captain's words, we headed off to the dark forest.

 _ **Claire**_

Slowly, I have started to warm up to the new people. They seem like good people, and the girl that utilizes a spear, Ara, seems like she could be an enjoyable companion. Currently, we are all heading to the shadow forest to investigate strange occurances. Upon arriving at the forest, it is immediately obvious what the problem is. Even though it's the morning, it's dark. The trees are a deep purple colour, and there are lots of strange looking spirits wandering around.

I summon my scythe and everyone gets into battle stance as spirits start to come in our direction. This will be interesting, I've never fought anything other than a demon. The smaller spirits are easier to kill than the less common large spirits. We cler quite a bit of the forest rather quickly, when suddenly the ground shakes and a low rumbling sound fills the air.

"Wh-what was that?" Chung asks, looking around nervously.

"We haven't seen anything that could make that sound so far." Raven said.

From just beyond us, a large tree-like creature appears. I can feel the darkness radiating from it.

"Why . . . would an Ent attack people?" Rena said sadly. "They're very wise creatures."

"I do not know, but this Ent seems angry." Eve said eyeing the huge thing.

The Ent lunges at us and slams its fist on the ground. Thankfully, everyone was able to dodge, if someone hadn't, it would've hurt. A lot. This was our signal to attack, and we all made our move. Even so, it proved to be stronger than we predicted. Swinging it's large arms around, it barely missed Rena, damaging her hair a bit.

"Why you . . ." Rena was very mad, and a whole different side of her appeared. "Perfect Storm!" a huge tornado made of green energy materialized from Rena's bow, finally dealing the finishing blow to the Ent. "Hmph. I'll look older if my hair is ruined." Rena complained.

 _ **Elsword**_

Amazing. Rena managed to kill the Ent because it damaged her are so weird. At least now we have an idea of what is in the shadow forest and we can inform Lowe and Hoffman. I lead everyone out of the forest and into Elder village. Lowe and Hoffman are waiting for us, and I tell them about our adventure.

"You say an Ent attacked you?" Hoffman asked.

"Yes." I reply.

"That's strange. Perhaps this is not only the absence of the El shard." Lowe comments.

Hoffman nods. "You mentioned the shadow mages. Perhaps the leader is somewhere. It is probably responsible."

"We will take care of it then," I reassure them, as my team gets ready to head out again.

Once again, we are headed to that gloomy forest. Just being there makes me feel gloomy.

"Can't we just go home?" I whine.

SLAP! Well, that was a mistake. Eve's slaps are not to be taken lightly. Note to self: try to complain less often . . .

Entering the darkness again, we fight off the spirits for a while before Aisha gasps and noticing, I run right into her, earning me a whack on the head by her staff. This is also not recommended. It seems I just can't catch a break today. Looking ahead, I see the reason. There's a larger version of a ghost mage, but wearing red.

"Kira-Kira hmm." Claire sounds unsurprised.

"Okay, then. I can take care of this, but Claire I need you to cover for me." Aisha says, as if this is an old routine.

"Got it. Diamond Barricade!" Claire creates a shiny barrier around the whole team. I must say, it's really disgusting to see glittery air.

"Thanks! Gust Screw!" Aisha waves her staff, creating a huge orange whirlwind around the mage thing. Thankfully, it was strong enough to kill it. Claire lets down the barrier and we all head back to Elder Village.

 _ **Claire**_

After meeting with Hoffman and Lowe again, they thanked us for helping and gave us the lead they found on this Banthus person. It took a while to get home because everyone was really tired and hungry. When we reached the cottage, some people took a bath, some helped prepare dinner, and others went to do other things. Since it seems like Rena and Ciel are the only ones who can cook anything edible, I decided to help out.

Over dinner, we talked about the lead. Tomorrow, we were supposed to head to Wally's Memorial Bridge. Suddenly, and completely off-topic, Add confronted me.

"Hey, Claire, why do you wear that bow around your neck? You always have it on right? You even had it in cat form." He asked me.

"Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you take it off either." Aisha sounded curious.

Honestly, of all things they could pick to ask about, it had to be this. I definitely can't tell them.

"It's a safety precaution." I say, hesitating a bit. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice.

"Oh, you mean of the sort of thing like wearing armour?" Eve asked.

"Well not exactly . . ." I trailed off. "It's more for your guys' sake than mine."

* * *

 **Well there it is! End on a cliffhanger hehehehe~**

 **I think that I will try to follow the events of the game as far as advancement of everything, and make adjustments where needed, and then also include the important things of my plot! Anyways, until next time~**

 **Reviews:**

 **KeitaroHigurashi:**

 **Thank you for the advices! Also for pointing out my mistakes, I hadn't thought of those! Also I hope that I have clarified the powers issue with Claire! I hope you enjoy my story, and now worries, I'm grateful to have advice!**

 **Shirou-kun:**

 **Ah, yes I am that kind of person that answers questions with more questions~ XD But not to worry, somethings will be cleared up soon enough. Aisha was a VP, but it might change for pairing sake! Also please have no worries about bias, since I know next to nothing about the pairings, so in this case, it will be helpful! Also I have no idea what to do with poor Claire in pairings ehehe . . . she might just become the next Elesis, forever alone lol. Thank you for your support! I am very grateful for it~ Please do enjoy this chapter!**

 **Well, on that note, I'm off to do my health course . . .** _ **sigh**_

 **~Rin**


	4. Chapter 4

**Well, Rin is finally back. I'm really sorry to make everyone wait a week for an update, but i've been pretty sick the whole week. Even though i'm still sick, i think it's not fair to make everyone wait more than a week! to make up for my absence, i'll post multiple chapters today (time permitting!) i have added a picture to the story too! the new butterfly outfits are really pretty, and i love to skill cut in for them, so i'm using aisha's~ also, please let me know on the pairings, so far there's been requests for add x ara!**

 **Special thanks to ibordonada1989-san for following and favouriting!**

 **Enjoy~**

* * *

 _ **Ara**_

"It's more for your guys' sake than mine." Claire said.

What could that mean? Suddenly I could feel Eun taking over and my appearance changed accordingly. Claire looked really surprised, but everyone else had become fairly used to it by now.

"Now, I don't think that's quite right." Eun said. Claire looked a bit nervous. "I feel an enormous amount of power coming from that ribbon. Aisha said that she was the one who gave you your human form, but I don't think that's correct. It was someone else, right? Or perhaps," Eun smiled a bit mischievously, "you've had it all along?"

Everyone was silent and it was a heavy silence. Claire looked down. "Yes, that's true. I used Aisha's magic to completely secure this ribbon." Aisha look horrified, but before she could say anything, Eun continued.

"So, whatever this ribbon is keeping at bay is so terrifying that you needed a lot of power to harness it."

Claire nodded with a serious look. "Yes. I really, truly hope that none of you ever have to know what it is for. But, in the case that we run into my father and you do find out, you have to kill me."

"Isn't asking us to kill you too much?" Chung spoke up.

"If she endangers us, then it's safer to do it right?" Add said.

"Yes, now if you'll excuse me, I have something important to attend to." Claire said standing up and going to her room.

By now, I was back to normal, and very confused. What could Eun be getting at? Clearly she knows more than the rest of us about that ribbon.

"I wonder . . . if it's really okay to have her with us?" Asiha said nervously.

"Isn't she your friend?" Rena looked at Aisha.

"Well yeah but, now that I think about it, I really know nothing about her!" Aisha exclaimed.

"Maybe she'll open up a bit once she gets used to us. I mean, we're a pretty odd group and I don't think you can adjust to us so easily." I said, trying to cheer Aisha up.

"Yeah . . ." Aisha sounded unsure.

"Well, I think we should all get some sleep. We have to find Banthus as soon as possible!" Rena said. With that, we all went to bed.

 _ **Claire**_

I really was not expecting Ara to be the vessel of a demon, much less a gumiho. Absentmindedly, I look down at my wrist and stare at the red label etched into it. _00-0C-L41R3_.I wish I could erase it; my existence. It's no use, though. Really, in the case the truth is revealed, will they be able to kill me?

I hope. I can sense that no matter how much I don't want it to happen, it will. Probably because of Father. Speaking of which, I wonder how Ian's doing? Does he know what Father did with me? Maybe it's better that he thinks I'm dead. He'd probably do something stupid if he knew.

There's a knock at my door that snaps me out of my up, I walk over to the door and open it, seeing Rena standing outside.

"Sorry, do you mind if I come in?" she asked.

I nodded and let her come in. Rena smiled and sat down on my bed, and I sat next to her.

"Claire, you know, it's okay to become friends with us! No matter what, we'll stick by your side, so even if there's things that make your presence dangerous, it's okay! I mean, look at Elsword. He's dangerous to practically all of us with his incredible ability to ruin anything." she said to me.

I giggled at her description of Elsword. It's really true though. "Well, I just don't want to end up hurting anyone. But everyone seems so welcoming to me despite not knowing anything about me. It's really amazing to me. I've never seen a team with such diversity as yours. It would be nice to have real friends . . ." I trail off.

"So you'll stay, right? This is great! We could really use another team member, I need help handling all of them~ After tomorrow's work, why don't we go shopping in Elder? You don't have proper clothes, I'm sure, and your room is in need of a makeover!" Rena said excitedly, standing up and waving before going to her room. I was left sitting on my bed speechless. I never said I was going to leave? Is this really okay?!

 _ **Eve**_

I woke up to bright light bathing my room in yellowish colours. Wait, I don't think that's normal. Opening my eyes, I find Rena standing by my bed with an air of excitement. Surely this means something is up.

"What is the matter?" I asked her with a straight face.

"Well, Claire decided to stay, so after we do work, I want you and all of the other girls to come with me and her to pick out clothes for her!" Rena exclaimed.

"She never said that she will leave, correct? Plus, why should all of us go together to do this shopping?" I asked her slightly confused.

She just gave me a look and said, "Just, get ready so we can finish work early today!"

 _ **Elsword**_

 _BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!_

This is what I, most unpleasantly, wake up to. Slowly, I get out of bed and dress. Once I finally get outside of my room, I'm speechless by what I see. Rena is standing in the hallway, bashing two big pots together.

"Oh, good you're awake!" She looks at me.

"What the hell are you making so much noise?!" Add yells at her coming out of his room, and I nod in agreement.

She glared at Add. "Due to special circumstances, no don't even bother asking, we must get our work done early today! We need to follow that lead on Banthus!"

Finally all the members had assembled in the common room and the banging sotpped. Suspiciously, all the girls were already ready. I suspect that we were the only ones subjected to that sound pollution.

Claire stands up and clears her throat. "Firstly, I am sorry for Rena's methods of waking you. Secondly, we must go to Wally's Memorial Bridge. According to Luchiel, there are some bandits hanging around there, and they might be related to Banthus."

It seems like Claire's mannerisms have changed slightly. I suspect Rena. Not that it's a bad thing, though, she's more pleasant to be around than Aisha. Anyway, we started our journey to Wally's Memorial Bridge.

 _ **Lu**_

Within a few hours of arriving to the bridge, and some beating, we managed to leave with pieces of a map. I wonder what it is a map of? Oh, maybe it shows the locations of a stash of sweets . . . hehehe~ Probably not, but a girl can dream! We take the pieces of the map to Hoffman to see if he knows where it is.

"What luck!" Hoffman exclaims. "This seems to be a map to Banthus' hideout itself!"

"Really?" I ask him with a bit of disappointment in my voice. I was really hoping for a stash of sweets.

"Yes. You all should head over and stop Banthus, but beware, he keeps a giant red phoru as a lookout." Hoffman replied.

"Hey, don't you think it's strange that the castle has done nothing to try to stop the thieves?" Chung asked suddenly.

"That is true. I suspect that Wally might be in on it, unfortunately." Hoffman grimaced.

"Either way, we'll stop Banthus!" I said cheerfully.

Hoffman smiled, and saw us off.

The trip was really long and boring, but we finally made it to the self proclaimed Banthus Caves.

Just as Hoffman had warned, there was a giant red phoru as the lookout.

"I heard that these are faster and wiser than normal phoru." Rena cautioned us.

Of course, she was right. The phoru managed to dodge several of our attacks, but we still killed it. We had to take out quite an amount of thieves and bandits as well, and once we got further into the caves, we got quite the surprise.

There was a giant bat hanging from the ceiling!

"I got it!" Ara called, letting Eun take over. The bat didn't stand a chance, and was out after a few minutes. "Let's go!" Eun kept running.

Everyone followed calmly. "N-no one's gonna talk about that?!" I cried in surprise. They all ignored me as if this was a normal occurrence. Well then.

With a bit more running, we ended up in a high-ceilinged chanber of the caves, and sitting on a rock was none other than BAnthus himself.

"Banthus!" Elsword growled. "I had to be woken up early for this, so I hope you're ready!"

Isn't that . . . a little off? Nevermind. He charged forward and started to attack Banthus. We all followed suit, and surprisingly, Banthus was able to keep up. He dodged and even attacked. I could tell Eun was getting impatient by her aura.

"Let's finish this!" Eun said getting into stance to put an attack.

"I'd love to play with you some more," Banthus smirked, "But, I have a job to fulfil!" With that he jumped up and disappeared.

"This isn't a magic show!" Raven yelled in frustration.

Noticing a piece of paper fluttering in the air, I jumped up to catch it.

"Hey, guys! I think I found something!" I exclaimed, waving the letter around.

"Let's show it to Hoffman." Aisha said, heading out of the cavern.

 _ **Aisha**_

After reading the letter that Lu handed to him, Hoffman nodded but had a grim look.

"This is a letter from Wally, to Banthus. It asks him to steal the El!" he said sadly.

"You were right after all. Wally was in on it." Chung shook his head in disappointment.

"Well, you guys are dismissed for today, I have some people to talk to about this." Hoffman got up and left.

 _ **Later that evening~**_

 _ **Narrator**_

"We're back!" Rena called to the rest of the house. None of the boys heard her though, because they were all playing video games that Add had set up in the common room. Rena and Aisha, followed by Claire wearing her new clothes, went into the living room to check what they were doing.

"What are you doing?" Claire asked them looking at the big screen Add had created. All of them turned towards the three and were shocked to see Claire's 'new look'.

"Oh shit!" Elsword just couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Aisha had picked out a pale green dress that went down mid thigh. It had no sleeves and the back cut down almost to her waist. Rena said it was perfect, but Claire thought it was too short. They paired it with white ballet flats and Rena insisted on doing her hair, so it was now perfectly straight with side part.

Claire narrowed her eyes at him.

Elsword leaned over to Chung. "Dude, she actually has potential to look nice!" he whispered a little too loudly.

Chung took one look at Aisha and replied, "You know you're dead."

Aisha summoned her staff and Elsword made a correct decision to run.

Rena and Claire just shrugged and laughed.

* * *

 **Unfortunately, I do not have any time to type another chapter, and I can't tomorrow or wednesday because of an abundance of quizzes, but hopefully, i can update soon! i threw some comedy (?) into this chapter to lighten up the mood, and i hope everyone enjoyed it~!**

 **(also it is okay to PM me if you have something to discuss! i'll reply as soon as possible!)**

 **Reviews:**

 **Shirou-kun:**

 **yes, very soon everyone will see about her past! i'm sorry for elesis! it seemed like she was alone most times, but i know see some people like her to be with add. as for add x ara, it's probability is high~ but i don't know which classes to use!**

 **the ribbon is key *^* hehehe but i have a bad habit of making people wonder about everything so i'm sorry xvx~ i hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

 **KeitaroHigurashi:**

 **already discussed (?) in PM~**

 **well, hope everyone like this chapter!**

 **~rin**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm back~ i know i said that i probably won't update soon because of quizzes, but my luck pulled through for me! as it turns out, the hardest of the quizzes has been moved to friday, and another i have to take at a later date since i will be leaving school early for a doctor's appointment. and, that's why i'm here with another chapter!**

 **Anyway, i want to say that soon (well, at the end of bethma region), there will be a new character introduced! i'm really looking forward to it, and i hope everyone else will too!**

 **Well, on to the chapter!**

* * *

 _ **Claire**_

Yesterday, Rena insisted on taking me shopping with the other girls. It was . . . quite an experience, to say the least. Rena had me try on so many different clothing, and I think Elesis almost died of laughter. Aisha said she was jealous because apparently I looked good in anything. Of course, Elsword's outburst later on pushed her over the edge, and, well, Elsword's going to wish he hadn't said anything today. It was funny though, so I don't think I'll mention the fact that I can numb others' pain. Really, those two are nice together, but I'm not sure what their relationship is.

I woke up a bit earlier than I'd intended this morning, After getting dressed, I decided to make breakfast to say thank you to Rena for yesterday. It's the polite thing to do, right?

Walking downstairs, it seems like I'm the first one to wake up so I go into the kitchen right away and start cooking. I decided on the food that was Aisha's favourite thing I can make: chocolate flavoured pancakes filled with berries.

As soon as the meal started giving of an aroma, Aisha was up and by my side.

"Well, that was fast." I said, turning to look at her.

"Why're you cooking?" She asked me staring at the food.

"To say thank you! That's what I'm supposed to do, right?" I ask her.

"Well, you don't have to, but if you're making this, then it's great!" Aisha replied, practically drooling.

"You have to wait until everyone's up or else you'll eat it all!" I said, moving the plate as she was about to eat one.

"Hmph!" Aisha sits down to wait for everyone.

Luckily for her, it wasn't too long until everyone was up, in fact, I hadn't even finished cooking.

"Wow! What's the occasion?" Rena asked, the last one to come into the room.

"I just wanted to take some work off your load!" I said, finally finishing and serving everyone, making sure Aisha was last. Just for fun~

"So, what's in these?" Elsword asks, looking at the pancakes.

"I don't know, probably like poison or something . . ." Aisha trailed off, probably trying to get more for herself.

"I bet you're just jealous that she can cook better than you can. Come to think of it, she better than you at everything: better looking, better at cooking, better at fighting, and so on. She'd be an ideal wife, probably." Elsword retorted. I wasn't really listening anymore.

Aisha laughed coolly, and then I started listening again. "Claire already has her heart set on someone, so give up now."

I almost choked and Aisha smirked at me.

"What are you talking about?! I don't like anyone at all!" I panicked.

"Ohoho! what's this?" Rena suddenly took interest in the conversation.

"I'm sure _he'd_ be sad to hear you say that~" Aisha enunciated the 'he'.

"Aisha! It's been _years_ since I've seen him! Things've changed! I bet he doesn't even remember me!" Have things really changed though?

Aisha narrowed her eyes and smiled. " _Have things really changed though?_ "

"What's that supposed to mean?" Somehow, I managed to keep a straight face. Aisha just laughed and I should've known something was up.

 _ **Ara**_

After breakfast was over, we had to head out to see Hoffman about Banthus and Wally. Breakfast was really delicious and full of drama, and everyone pretty much forgot about the events of breakfast, well, except Aisha and it was like watching two very close friends play around the whole way to see Hoffman. Personally, I'm a bit interested in this person that Aisha claims Claire is close to. But there's no time for that, we must focus on the task at hand, since we arrived to the meeting place.

"Hello everyone!" Hoffman says, and we exchange our greetings. "According to a friend, there used to be a few secret passageways to the castle from that cavern you fought Banthus in. It should lead to the suburbs around Wally's castle."

"Okay, we'll check it out." Elsword said, getting ready to leave.

We made our way back through the cavern, and just as Hoffman had told us, there was an opening to what seemed to be sewers.

"We have to travel through sewers?" Add looked disgusted.

Elesis slapped him on the back. "Don't be such a baby!" she laughed and lead the way.

"Don't worry, you can float on your dynamos right? If you do that you won't get dirty." I whispered to him, following Elesis.

Unsurprisingly, the sewers were filled with bandits, and this only confirmed our theory. We took them out as we progressed. After we had gone a long way, I hoped we were close to the exit. To everyone's shock, Banthus appeared right in front of us. Banthus now had some weird necklace and arm piece.

"Wally gave me this necklace, so now I'll stop you brats once and for all!" Banthus cackled.

Indeed, that necklace seemed to have given Banthus some power, but we all attacked together, so he stood no chance. Even though we aren't that powerful alone, when we attack at once, the power is at least enough to defeat a weakling like him.

"Let's take the necklace back to Hoffman, I'm sure it'll help us somehow." I said, picking it up.

Rena nodded, and we went back to meet Hoffman.

"Banthus had this fancy necklace. He said that Wally gave it to him." Rena said, giving the necklace to Hoffman.

"Good to know. I'll look into it and tell you what I find tomorrow!" Hoffman replied, taking the necklace.

 _ **Aisha**_

When we got home, everyone but me was surprised to find mail. I already knew that one of the letters was coming, but I was unaware that Elsword and I would get letters from home. Elsword groaned upon receiving his, and I smirked seeing the silver envelope addressed to Claire. I hope she doesn't kill me.

"Hey Claire, there's a letter for you!" I handed it to her and immediately ran off laughing.

 _ **Claire**_

Aisha handed me a silver envelope addressed to me and then ran off laughing. Oh no. I flipped the envelope over to find a gold seal. On it was no other than Ian's family crest.

"How'd he know where━ AISHA!" I screamed chasing after her.

* * *

 **mwahaha suspense again . . . oops.**

 **anyways, sorry, it's a bit short compared to last chapter!**

 **hope you guys liked it~**

 **Reviews:**

 **Shirou-kun: yes, sorry for the wait! no one can resist Rena! probably not even me hahaha. thank you, i hope i do well on them, it's a lot of work! please do enjoy this surprise (?) update!**

 **KeitaroHigurashi: thank you, yes, i think i will! yes, for the shopping trip, i was originally going to write it, but it was taking me a long time to write that chapter and so i ended up cutting it out ;-;**

 **well, thanks for all the views, and i hope you all enjoyed it!**

 **~rin**


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